I'm going to be rather busy over the next several months (from January to July). I will be working on Wall Street at RiskMetrics, on a co-op (a semester off from college to work). It'll be a real, 5-day-a-week, go-into-the-city-and-back-home job, unlike anything I've done yet (most of my experience is working from home, doing freelance jobs).

I'll stay in contact with the forum, and since the nature of my position will be very Perlish, I doubt they'd have a problem with me taking some time out to check the boards for some questions to answer, but please respect the possible tardiness of my replies (both on the forum, and via email), and please tap the other members of the forum for help.

It's been a great year helping the forum out, seeing it grow. I'm glad I'm a part of so many Perl communities -- this is one of the best I've seen.

And if you have the time and money, please check out YAPC 2001 (probably in Philadelphia -- I'll keep you posted). It's an inexpensive Perl conference for the programmers (rather than the suits). You'll have a good time, meet some Perl celebrities (Randal Schwartz, Nathan Torkington, brian d foy, et. al.), maybe even me -- I'll be giving a talk on something, you can be sure.

It would be wonderful if YAPC::America::North 19101 was in Philadelphia. But as an active Philadelphia Perl Monger I can report that it won't be here. And we even have zip code 19101 in the city.

I just hope someone decides when and where soon because a new budget year is set to begin at work and I need to grab my share of the travel budget before others spend all the money.

PS. The next Philadelphia Perl Monger event will be January 8th, if you are in this part of the world. Actually it will still be the 8th even if you are not here, but we will just have to go on without you. (http://phl.pm.org)